So this is death.
No tunnel. No god. No truck.
Just a ceiling made of cracked wood and a smell I don't recognize—but my body does.
I try to move and something tiny shifts. My arms are too light. My breath is shallow, uneven, like I've forgotten how lungs work. Panic flares, but it's muffled—wrapped in fog.
I blink.
The room swims into focus. Tatami mats. Paper walls. A window barred with wood, not metal. Everything is… old. Poor. Real in a way dreams never are.
I've seen this before.
Not this room. But this world.
A village built from wood and chakra and quiet cruelty. People wearing forehead protectors like proof they belong. Children trained to kill before they're allowed to choose who they are.
My heart stutters.
No, that's stupid. That's nostalgia talking. I watched anime as a kid—everyone did. Naruto ran on the TV while homework piled up. I remember laughing at the stupid pranks, crying at deaths I pretended didn't matter.
Iremember thinking, it's fiction
A laugh bubbles up—thin, hysterical.
I used to love this anime
Why is this body so painful?
It is everywhere at once, raw and uncompromising. My chest burns with each breath. My limbs refuse to move as they should. My head spins, thick and heavy, and my thoughts are smeared like ink in water — shapes I can't name, feelings I can't understand.
I scream. A harsh, ragged sound that surprises me. My own voice feels alien, thin and brittle. My stomach clenches. My head throbs. My body is a cage I did not recognize, and I hate it instantly.
Cold presses in next. It isn't just temperature — it is a weight. It crawls inside my bones, settling there, and it refuses to leave. I shiver uncontrollably, hugging my knees against my chest, but nothing works. My teeth chatter. My fingers go numb. I close my eyes and try to remember warmth, but even memory feels distant.
A door creaks. Something brushes my arm — rough, calloused, indifferent. I flinch. My heart hammers so violently I fear it will burst.
"Alive," a voice mutters somewhere near.
Another responds, flat and bored, "For now."
I want to answer. I try. But my throat burns too much, my lungs are raw. I curl tighter. I taste nothing, not even air. My stomach twists. Hunger gnaws at me. It is sharp, persistent, constant.
I am nothing.
---
Time stretches.
Days pass, though I do not count them. Nights are colder. Shadows grow longer and sharper, pressing into me as if to remind me that I am alone. Hunger grows sharper, twisting my stomach until I feel hollow inside. My hands shake, my legs tremble, my teeth ache. I imagine food constantly. Anything — bread, fruit, water. I imagine the warm smell of cooking. I imagine soft clothes. I imagine being held.
I am starving. I am small. I am afraid.
I fall, over and over, as if my body is learning the world too slowly. I try to move across the floor of the half-collapsed shed I now call home, but my knees scrape against the cold, rough wood. I lie there, breathing raggedly, waiting for whatever comes next.
No one comes.
---
I watch.
From cracks in the walls, from gaps in the roof, I watch the village lights flicker. I hear voices — loud, harsh, alive. Merchants calling prices. Children laughing. People arguing over trivial things. Laughter and anger and life. Everything continues without me.
I try to reach it. I crawl outside once, into the street. My stomach twists at the smell of smoke, cooking food. I try to step closer to a shop that throws away scraps, but a man passing by mutters, "Move along, you wretch," and I shrink into the shadows, choking back tears I don't have the energy to cry.
I am too small. Invisible.
And yet, for the first time, I notice something about that invisibility: it keeps me alive.
---
Hunger teaches me more than fear ever could.
I learn where to move to find scraps. I learn which doors are unlocked, which windows broken, which garbage piles contain something edible. I do not think of this as planning. It is instinct. It is survival. I taste rot and grit, chew crusts of bread that scrape my gums, wash them down with cold rainwater that makes my stomach twist.
Sometimes, I nearly get caught. A patrol rounds a corner too quickly. A shopkeeper steps outside. My heart hammers so violently it makes me dizzy. I freeze. My breaths are shallow, careful. I wait. They pass. I do not move until I am certain.
Every near-miss is a lesson. Every scrape and stumble teaches me where not to be, when to stay still, how to disappear.
---
Fear becomes a constant companion. Not abstract fear, but sharp, immediate, pressing.
The sound of footsteps, a sudden shout, the jingle of metal — every noise makes me flinch, curl, shrink smaller than I am. I panic silently, shivering, tasting bile in my mouth, heart hammering, muscles rigid, praying that nothing sees me, nothing notices.
Sometimes I cry. Not for comfort. Not expecting help. Just because my body demands it. The tears are salty and bitter and warm, and they fall onto my hands, and still nothing changes.
I am small. I am nothing. I am alive.
---
Hunger and cold shape me. They sharpen my senses in a way that feels alien and frightening. I notice movement without turning my head. I hear whispers and half-words that others assume are lost in the wind. I smell smoke from fires too far to see. I notice how guards pause, how merchants shift their weight, how children flinch when adults raise their voices.
I do not understand why I notice these things. I do not care yet. They are only part of the world, like cold and hunger.
---
One night, I try moving farther from the shed, crawling across the rough dirt outside. My stomach twists violently, hunger clawing, making my head swim. My hands are scraped. My knees are bleeding. I collapse beside a discarded basket of vegetables. I pick one up. I taste it. Rotten, hard, bitter. I chew anyway. Survival is not about pleasure. Survival is not about comfort. Survival is about existing.
I close my eyes. I taste grit. I taste failure. I taste the world refusing me.
I open my eyes and see movement on the street — a shadow against the dim lanterns. Not a child. Not another scavenger.
A man stands there, leaning casually, observing. Calm. Sharp. Something about him makes my stomach tighten in a way hunger cannot explain.
I freeze. My heart hammers. My throat goes dry. I know instinctively: he is not here to feed me. He is not here for kindness.
And yet — he sees me.
I want to run. I know I should. But my body refuses.
I watch him, shivering, starving, desperate, and for the first time since I woke, I feel seen.
And I do not like it.
---
The man tilts his head slightly. I catch the glint of something in his eyes — calculation, awareness, intent. I do not understand it yet. I only know that my chest tightens, that my stomach twists, and that the world has just grown larger and more dangerous in an instant.
I stay where I am. Frozen. Hungry. Afraid. Invisible until now.
I do not speak. I cannot.
I only stare.
And the man watches back.
Somewhere deep down, a thought slithers through my mind, weak and desperate:
This meeting will change everything. But I do not know how. And I do not know if I am ready.